How times change. A month ago health officials were predicting a UK-wide measles epidemic with multiple measles deaths and disabilities, with everyone not previously vaccinated to get the MMR vaccine.

Welsh Health officials were first caught out when the British media discovered that the figures being given out to them were of only suspected cases and that doctors massively over-report measles cases. As CHS has reported, sometimes as many as 73 in every 74 reports are NOT measles: [Laboratory confirmed cases of measles, mumps, and rubella, England and Wales: October to December 2004 – CDR Weekly, Volume 15 Number 12 Published: 24 March 2005: Vaccines Did Not Save Us – 2 Centuries Of Official Statistics].

Even the standard general officially published “blurb” available online confirms this but Public Health Wales appears to have omitted to tell the media:

Reported notifications of measles usually far exceed the actual numbers of confirmed cases. Other rashes are often mistaken for measles.” Measles Public Health Wales Health Protection Division – [accessed & added to CHS 12 May 2013]

Over at Age of Autism Jenny Allan reports that the BBC removed from their BBC online news the bizarre claim that prior to 1988, when MMR vaccine was introduced there were ‘millions’ of annual UK measles cases with 100 measles child deaths every year: Jenny Allan | May 06, 2013 at 08:10 PM.

Thanks to information from Jenny Allan we show what the BBC has now “doctored” from its online news reports to remove the fake news the BBC had reported from the wildly exaggerated claims quoted by Dr Sara Hayes. They have also changed the headline but the original headline is here in a tweet from the BBC’s health “journalist” (?) Fergus Walsh who seems to have “led the charge” at the BBC to scare parents with fake news: “Measles: Swansea epidemic cases could exceed 600http://bbc.in/Xpi860“. Here is the extract from the original – with the parts shown in red now deleted:-

“We are not in any way judgmental about why their children may have missed the MMR in the past. The important thing is that they get the jab now,” she added.

Before the introduction of the MMR in 1988, about half a million children caught measles and about 100 died from it each year in the UK.”

It is deeply troubling that any organisation holding itself out to report news “doctors” that news. This is an example of the BBC publishing untrue claims as news and then only when it has been found doing it does it then airbrush the fact from history. There is no single reference on the online page to record the BBC retracting its untrue news claims nor any public apology. This is makes BBC news reporting look crooked. Clearly, this kind of practice makes it difficult to trust the BBC’s reporting. Little surprise then that the muslim world does not trust the western first world who seem to manipulate their lives. Will the responsible people working as journalists at the BBC complain? Or maybe they should get a job elsewhere?

Instead of airbrushing false news when caught the BBC should have admitted it got it wrong so the British tax and licence payers and the world can see and the BBC should apologise.

The media were not initially reporting the suspected numbers of measles cases compared to the laboratory confirmed figures but were later. They are still falling down badly on the job with the BBC at the forefront – seeming to operate as as self-styled Pravda for the British Government.

Following a 2nd May news release from health officials the backtracking has started. It was being reported in Welsh newspapers [one of which in Swansea was being blamed for the “outbreak” by publicising the problems with the MMR vaccine]:

A PUBLIC health expert says measles cases in the Swansea area may have peaked. The number of laboratory confirmed cases in the outbreak stands at 370 out of a total of 850 samples tested.” Dr Sara Hayes, director of public health at Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board, said she believed the number of people with the disease will fall in the next few weeks.” Dr Hayes said: “We do not seem to be seeing the scale of morbidity we were anticipating. There is a suggestion we have reached a peak in the outbreak. “I am hoping we will see a decline in the next few weeks.

Scam claims appear to include that 1 in 1000 would die from measles when completely false. In the last 20 years+ since 1992 there have been 80,000+ measles cases [counting up to now] in England & Wales and zero deaths in healthy individuals from acute measles in that time. That is a clear and completely true and accurate statement which the vast majority of people find surprising in the light of the information health officials put in the media. They would surely conclude they are being scammed: Official Data Confirms – 20th Century Measles Deaths Would Fall Exponentially – And Regardless of Measles Or MMR Vaccine.

The 1 in 1000 figure appears to be based on figures published in the BMJ for Bulgaria, a much poorer country which is likely to have an even worse system for reporting measles cases and mortality than Public Health Wales: The Bulgarian figures could easily be vastly over-hyped, far more so than in the UK and with a little help from some of our “friends” in some parts of the drug industry and some of their many hangers-on in medical professions.

And the Bulgarian figures do appear to be over-hyped. It is bizarrely claimed in the BMJ that there were 30,367 cases reported in Europe in 2009-2010 with most reported cases in 2010 in Bulgaria of 22,005. This is coupled with the fantastical claim that “Of these, 21,877 people were admitted to hospital”: Measles outbreak in EuropeBMJ 2011 Published 15 June 2011) BMJ 2011;342:d3724

But that is how reliable the British Medical Journal is in Century 21.

[ED’s REQUEST TO READERS: – complain to the BBC Trust, repost the link to this on Facebook, blogs, websites, Twitter, newspaper online comments please & email your families and friends – people continue to be scammed by health officials and the media – (added: 5/May/2013)

The claims of a 25 year old man being alleged to have died from measles also appears a scam claim. He had already spent five days in hospital being treated for severe asthma. The same hospital refused to re admit him several days later, apparently very ill with some kind of rash.

His angry family confirmed he had been fully vaccinated against measles as a child. The authorities stated this young father had measles virus, but the cause of death could not be established by an autopsy [postmortem examination]. The formal inquest into this death has been postponed [conveniently]. Someone being treated for severe asthma may have been treated with immunosuppressant drugs like steriods. An hospital is a centre of infection with all sorts of infections circulating. That combination is a recipe for potential problems.

Welsh health authorities seem now to be in a spin over their over hyping of what seems to have been a very small measles outbreak, and some may now be dissembling.

CHS understands the lower figure is claimed to be for direct notifications by health professionals only and the higher figure is for notification by health professionals and others. But no explanation on either site of where the figures are from nor how compiled nor any qualification to explain. And the explanation being given raises more questions than it answers.

As for the Public Health Wales figures for the Swansea and all Wales “outbreaks”, there are no qualifications of any kind on the reports published as total monthly figures such as the February and March monthly All Wales surveillance of laboratory confirmed infections reporting only 8 laboratory confirmed cases in the whole of those months from the whole of Wales. There are some reports that health officials are now claiming that these reports are only for specimens tested in Wales and “the majority of samples are sent directly to the specialist reference laboratory in England for confirmation“. That also raises more questions than it answers.

CHS can report that there are more revelations yet to come on the Welsh outbreak – so “stay tuned”.

If samples are sent for “confirmation” that means the results are sent back to Public Health Wales. There is no point sending them for “confirmation” if the results are not sent back. So Public Health Wales should have ALL the data. And “confirmation” indicates these are confirmations of tests already carried out.

Additionally, weekly reports are published and then updated in monthly reports. The reports themselves published by Public Health Wales contain no qualification they are incomplete and set out the figures as all of the laboratory tested cases. If the reports were wildly inaccurate there would be no point publishing them. The monthly reports do not appear to have any qualification to the effect that they do not contain all of the lab results – including those confirmed for them outside Wales.

Officials say the true figures will not be published for another three months – how so very convenient.

Here is the extract from the original – with the parts shown in red now deleted:-